AirAsia plane tail found, says Indonesia search chief

Jakarta: A large piece of the tail of the downed AirAsia QZ8501, bearing part of the company's logo, has been discovered in 29 metres of water on the edge of the search zone off Borneo.

Indonesian search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo announced the breakthrough on Wednesday afternoon, the eleventh day of the search, saying the object had been found by underwater instruments at 5am local time.

The first underwater images of the wreckage have been released.Credit:AFP/Basarnas

"At 10.30am I was told the object bore the letters 'A' and 'I' on it, and we matched what we found with the logo of AirAsia," Mr Soelistyo said.

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"I can now confirm to you that the discovery was a part of the tail of the AirAsia aircraft, so we have been successful in finding the aircraft tail, as we had been hoping to."

Images of the plane's wreckage under water have been released.Credit:AP/Basarnas

AirAsia chief executive Tony Fernandes tweeted that if it was the correct part of the tail section, it would contain the crucial; "black box" that would give investigators clues as to what caused the plane to crash.

The discovery came within what's now known as the "second additional area" — a search zone to the west of the original focus area, because strong underwater currents have been sweeping wreckage westwards.

Mr Soelistyo said divers would now be deployed to try to recover the bodies that his agency, Basarnas, is sure are trapped in the wreckage.

A number of bodies were found overnight, bringing the total of those recovered to 40 out of a flight with 162 passengers and crew.

Recovered seats from the AirAsia plane.Credit:Getty Images

As bodies floating free in the ocean are decaying fast, authorities hope most of the rest of the victims will be capable of being recovered from the four or more large pieces of wreckage believed to be on the ocean floor.

Basarnas and the Indonesian National Transport Safety Committee were now trying to find the black box using the pinger locator.

A search operation for the missing AirAsia plane.Credit:Reuters

The breakthrough came as the government's crackdown on what it sees as unauthorised flights continues, carrying grave risk for AirAsia's reputation in Indonesia.

More airport and flight approval officials were suspended for allowing the doomed flight to leave Surabaya on a day (Sunday) that it was not authorised to fly the Singapore route.

The feared Corruption Eradication Commission, KPK, has been deployed to see if there was any corruption involved in that process.

But the government appears to have pulled back on its heavy-handed treatment of domestic AirAsia flight routes.

On Tuesday, airport officials announced that they had banned AirAsia from flying five of its key Indonesian domestic services out of Surabaya airport, including three from Surabaya to the capital, Jakarta, one to Bali and one to regional centre Bandung.

But the general manager of the airport authority, Trikor Hardjo, said that, after the flights were cancelled, some more negotiations led to the suspension being revoked.

"The airline has already been asked for changes, and the permit was just issued for all of those flights," Mr Trikor said.

The crackdown, followed by the backdown, seems to the be result of over-zealous regulation in an environment that is increasingly unfriendly and difficult for commercial operators in the wake of the crash.

A spokesman for the Transport Ministry, JA Barata, tried to clear up the confusion:

"The respective airlines can simply apply for new flying time to the respective division at Transportation Ministry. This is a regular practice and it is very simply done."

Only airlines who changed their day of flying should be suspended.

He hoped the results of the audit would be published on Friday or Monday the result can be published," Mr Barata said.

Michael Bachelard is The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald's foreign editor and the investigations editor at The Age. He has worked in Canberra, Melbourne and Jakarta as Indonesia correspondent. He has written two books and won multiple awards for journalism, including the Gold Walkley in 2017.